“Have the Lessons of the Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster Been Learned?”, a conference exploring the impact of the disaster and the future of energy transportation in Canada, took place at the University of Ottawa on December 8, 2016.

The conference brought together, for the first time in a public forum, representatives of citizens’ groups from Lac-Mégantic to engage with politicians, legal scholars, rail safety and regulatory policy experts. The conference provided a much-needed opportunity for discussion, debate and identification of possible avenues of consensus for moving forward. 

The conference addressed four critically important issues:

1) the impact of the disaster on the Lac-Mégantic community;

2) the ability of the transportation regulatory system to ensure that the transportation of dangerous goods by rail can be done safely;

3) the ability of the Canadian justice system to deal with the consequences of  Lac-Mégantic and other major disasters, as well as the role of local authorities in the Canadian constitutional context; and,

4) the implications of the disaster for the future development of energy transportation infrastructure and unconventional oil development.

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